I work in facilities management (but not as a manager). With Marlok out of business some have suggested the idea of the Church buying the patents to the Marlok technology and developing it further. There are other electronic locking systems, none of which have been officially approved by the Church because of the great expense involved with installation. I would really like to see Marlok advanced as there are many positives about it. Just wanted to start a little discussion.

My previous Stake Center in Provo used this system, and it seemed that we were constantly having trouble with the key readers in the doors. Either the key reader would not work at all or it would suddenly not recognize specific keys that were known to be authorized and legitimate (i.e., the bishop's key). I don't know much about the system other than the fact that it was a headache for us. I understand the principle behind it and - in theory - it seems like a wonderful system. In practice, I found it to be more of a nuisance than a security or efficiency feature.

In my current Stake Center in Arizona, we simply have the locks changed on the building every few years and issue new heavy-duty keys to authorized members. There are obvious costs associated with doing this, but the stake does a good job of keeping track of the keys and of auditing the wards' key logs, etc. Nobody with a key ever has to worry about being locked out because a temperamental door decides not to let them in. We also don't have to reprogram or service the door readers when one fails, and we've never had one of these heavy-duty keys get damaged and be "unreadable" by a door.

I don't really have strong feelings about this either way, but since you wanted to open a discussion about the system and a possible adoption of the technology by the Church, I figured I'd throw in my two cents. If the technology proved to be more reliable than I experienced, then it might be a cost-efficient and secure way of locking the buildings. In my experience, changing the locks and keys every few years may be a more efficient, easier, and cheaper alternative.